


heart filled to the brim with autumn

by Juliet_Capulet



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: AU, Came up with this on a whim, Cause I can't get enough of characters being too stupid know the other loves them, F/M, Heian Period, Historical, I really hopes it works, Jonsa Historical Event, Mutual Pining, Sansa's pining for the fjords, jonsa
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-05-28 18:54:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15055565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Juliet_Capulet/pseuds/Juliet_Capulet
Summary: Sansa has exiled herself from the capital, trailed by memories and misfortune. In the countryside of her childhood, she reflects on the lack of affection in her life and remembers the almost affair she had with Jon.Written for the Jonsa Historical Event. Lots of mutual pining here.





	1. moonlight spilling down

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant for the Jonsa Historical Event, but I ended up not finishing in time. However, I found this idea of Sansa as a Heian lady and Jon her estranged cousin deeply intriguing. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Heian period, it refers to the stretch of Japanese history from 794 CE to 1185 CE, and is named after the Heian-kyo, which is modern day Kyoto. The foundations of Japanese culture can be traced to this period and it is utterly unique in that most of what has come down to us was written by women. The first novel, The Tale of Genji, was written by a court lady, Murasaki Shikibu, during this time, and the titular character, Genji, is an embodiment of Heian ideals. Aristocratic life was highly ritualized, and art was the main concern of life. Women wore a complex style of dress, called jūnihitoe, which means twelve-layered robe, which was characterized by several layers of kimonos, ranging from 5 robes to upwards of thirty. Needless to say, it was extremely heavy and cumbersome. Even though ASOIAF is very much a western story, with roots in european history and fantasy, I thought there were elements of the Heian period that spoke to the characters of Jon and Sansa. Sensitivity to art was prized, and brooding was considered a major factor in this, as reflecting on the transience of beauty and life is pretty depressing. The handsome, brooding hero was very much an archetype during this period. I know this definitely an odd setting for a ASOIAF fic, but I felt it worked.

The cicadas never ceased their humming. It grated on Sansa’s ears as it echoed through her mother’s house. The only thing louder was the emptiness. Her brothers were nothing more than wisps of smoke above the funeral plain, and the one who still lived had buried himself in studies of the esoteric. Arya was traveling. There were letters, Sansa’s only outside contact, but they came infrequently and stained with the dust of the road. Letters were always a poor substitute for a sister, at any rate.

  
The only servant Sansa permitted was Old Nan, who spent her time muttering and cooking. The only clothes Sansa wore were the iron-grey of mourning. The only pastime she pursued was dreaming, going through adolescent diaries and childish poems.

It was the emptiness that both soothed and cut. She had retreated from public life more than a year ago, but it took less than half that for the letters from former friends and lovers to trickle to a stop.

  
_How romantic_ , they cried. _A religious retreat to the hinterlands_. They had written countless wakas to her, praising the purity of nature she was surely experiencing. They had amused her, along with the gossip they felt obligated to include. Margaery’s were always the most interesting, filled with intimate details of her life as imperial consort. Once, Sansa would have envied her, but now she felt only relief that her one-time friend had received the position instead of her.

  
But they came to a stop, and Sansa did not miss the constant reminder of her former life.

  
Her responses were few, but always carefully thought out. She played the part of a lady disillusioned with worldly affairs, preoccupied with salvation and copying countless sutras.

  
She did not pray anymore

  
_It’s the only place I can go where people don’t talk to me_

  
Sansa had not always been prone to melancholy, but service in the imperial court had taught her very little in the way of happiness. Religion had become her shield.

 

But it was just that, a shield. Her devotion to seeking salvation from the Amida Buddha had always been tempered by her father’s worship of the gods of the sea and mountain.

 

So, in her mother’s house, Sansa did not copy sutras. Instead, she poured over her diaries.

 

It was a morbid habit, Old Nan claimed. Sansa should not spend her days reflecting on her past like a shriveled up old woman.

  
Sansa ignored her.

  
The diaries themselves evoked memories of Sansa’s unyielding naiveté. She had been a beautiful girl, fresh-faced and sweet. Her auburn hair had been just a finger length longer than her height and her tall stature allowed her to wear amounts of robes that would have engulfed a shorter woman. That girl was the height of desirability, long-limbed with luxuriously thick hair and pale, clear skin. She had inherited her father’s eye for color and pattern, and her coloring allowed her to pull off daring combinations.

  
One entry detailed an occasion where Sansa had arrayed herself in in reds and yellows, her inner robes the palest yellow and her mantle a deep scarlet, with burnt oranges in between. Some courtier had written a poem declaring her the soul of fall.

  
Sansa had been delighted to be so connected to the most fashionable season.

  
There were countless little instances like this. She smiled at some of them, remembering the joy a compliment on her fan or a well-received poem brought.

  
Her fingers rested on an entry. Her heart sped up as she read it.

  
It was her first encounter with her cousin at court.

  
There had been a light snowfall that night, and Sansa had ventured out to view the reflection of the moonlight on pristine snow. Her heavy padded robes in lavender and dusky rose pulled around her, Sansa had left her fan behind. The moon was half-full, and Sansa hummed to herself, dreaming of the poem she would compose.

  
He saw must have seen her first, for when she started at the sight of a dark figure, he was already gazing back at her.

  
Sansa had never been close to her cousin. She was younger than him, and they had never had much in common. Then there were her mother’s frowns, her disapproval of association with an inheritor of such bad karma.

_The crown prince had fallen in love with a thoroughly unsuitable lady. She was a provincial, meant to marry another soon, but he pursued her anyway. He took her as second wife, much to the grief of his put-upon consort. The court, who loved the crown prince’s consort, scorned her. She was locked in corridors and her robes were smeared with dog excrement. She was miserable and longed for home, a distant, northern region. Her husband neglected her, sinking into one of his characteristic melancholies that made the court attendants sigh. Her father died, and then her eldest brother. She died in childbirth, far from her home and family, alone and unwanted. Her son was disregarded, sent away to the backward residence of his mother’s family._

 

_Bad karma_ , Sansa’s mother had always said when she warned her daughters away from him. _Misfortune spreads._

  
Sansa had never had much interest in Jon. He was moody, but not in the sensitive way of her much-vaunted literary heroes. He was kind but had little interest in the fashionable color combinations she put together for her dolls as soon as she learned their names. She played the thirteen-stringed koto, he read Father’s law books. She was the perfect lady, tucked up in her rooms reading, and he was always off tromping with Robb. There was no ill will between them. There was nothing between them at all.

  
But under the half moon, his grey eyes glowed with something she could not read. She wished for her fan. Jon was a close relative. He had seen her face countless times. Somehow, though, this was far more intimate. She felt exposed, her face bare before this almost-stranger. She wanted to retreat behind the blinds and put the formalities of men and women between them.

  
Under a plum tree, its gnarled age exposed in its winter nakedness, the wind blew snow into his hair. His hair bled into the inky night, his dark clothes consumed by shadows. For a moment, Sansa saw the world suspended, Jon frozen in the winter night.

  
She did not remember what they spoke of, only that single moment.

  
Even now, in the heat of summer, her bones were chilled with the memory.

  
They rarely interacted at court. He was thoroughly unfashionable and hovered around the edges of impropriety. She was in bloom then, wooed by numerous men.

  
Then Crown Prince Joffrey had approached her and then discarded her, and her world crumbled. The gossips turned on Sansa with a viciousness she had always thought herself impervious to.

  
Sansa had a series of unfortunate love affairs. There had been the pitiful courtship of Sir Dontos, the awkward engagement to Lord Tyrion, which led her into the clutches of the Minister of the Treasury Bureau, Lord Baelish. That business with Lord Baelish had been strange, and in the end, he practically pushed her into the arms of Harry Hardyng.

  
Unmarried women had affairs as a matter of course, and men were expected to entertain as many lovers as they could, but Sansa’s scandals piled up with the disasters that seemed to engulf her. The imperial family had already been decimated by a series of fires that swept through the palace. The throne had gone to a distant cousin (Jon had been passed over by the regent, Tywin Lannister, who maneuvered his daughter’s husband onto the throne). Then the Crown Prince died at his own wedding, and someone suggested the Lady Sansa spread bad luck to men associated with her, and her reputation was in tatters.

  
But there was Jon to comfort her. He slipped into her room at night, always silently waiting for her permission to slide the screens aside.

  
She would recite stories, and she had a vivid memory of their hands meeting as he helped her move her koto.

  
He was silent more often than not, but his eyes were always watching. Beneath his perennially black clothes and perceived ignorance of things like incense and dance, Jon continually astounded Sansa with his wry observations of the court.

  
Jon saw everything, but rarely spoke of what he knew. Sansa understood the court now, but unlike Jon who disdained it, she felt moved to help. There were always young girls who fell into the machinations of others, and though Sansa was loath to tar them with the same brush as herself in the eyes of others, she did her best assist behind the scenes. Small things, like sneaking in to set out a girl’s robes in a flattering combination or tucking scented sachets into her clothes. Nothing drastic, and nothing too noticeable.

  
Sansa retreated into herself, longing for home (is this how Aunt Lyanna felt?). Jon smelled of pine and snow, and she found herself longing to wrap herself around his scent.

  
When he left for a post in far flung lands, Sansa had wept. She reproached him for leaving her alone. He reproached her. He had to do his duty.

  
Jon did his duty and Sansa was left with tear-soaked sleeves.

  
There was a new emperor, and a new empress, and Sansa found herself alone again. Her father died, and then her brother, and then her mother, and then another brother. Now Sansa was always shrouded in grey, and servants scuttled away from her. _Bad karma, bad luck._

  
Arya had saved Sansa. Her little sister had swept into court and pulled favors Sansa did not question how she had. She was released from her imperial service, something that had been denied time and time again.

  
Jon had never come to see her.

  
They had never been lovers, Sansa told herself (had she ever given him a chance?). He had seen her as his lonely cousin, put upon by the court. She had not wanted to sleep with anyone ever again after all that business, but she dreamed of him.

  
She privately thought that is the real reason she happily followed Arya to their childhood home. There were no memories of Jon for her here.

  
Why could she not stop thinking of him? In the depth of summer, during the long rains, all she could dream about was the way snow glinted on his dark curls.

  
She shed her layers and lay outside, her hair veiling her body.

  
Sansa was bad karma. No wonder Jon did not want to meet with her again.

  
And then above her, was Jon. He peered down at her, his eyes looking into her. The gaze they shared was so intimate, far more exposing than anything she had ever done with the men who called themselves her lover.

  
_I meant to see you in the fall,_ he told her. _I wanted to see you in your season._

  
Sansa laughed. _I thought you didn’t want to see me at all. You never came back_

  
_You were angry at me. I thought… I thought you were done with me._

  
_No. I was never angry with you. Only with myself._

  
Jon touched her hair, tentatively, waiting for permission. Sansa smiled and pulled him inside.

  
Come autumn, then winter, and then spring, Sansa would never be done with Jon.


	2. through the trees

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon pines too

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been thinking a lot about the idea that Jon's memories will become jumbled up post-resurrection, and that he conflates Sansa with other woman. I played with the idea last chapter that Catelyn's dislike in this au came from Jon's bad karma if you will, and in the Heian period bad luck spreading was superstition but Cat has taken it to an extreme just as the court isolates Sansa. It another version of the bastard parallels.

The rain was funeral smoke gray. The summer had drenched Jon as he traveled, leached the color out of him through damp heat. Silhouetted against the cloudburst, he rode slowly on the old horse.

The old mare was all that could be spared, the dull and ashy thing well past any use in the field. It had been an ill omen then, and he should have stopped there. He should have stopped when the dye ran out of his coat, blurring the divide between gray coat, gray horse, and gray man. He should have stopped and waited until fall, when the forests paid homage to the girl he had not seen in many years.

Autumn had always been her season. It was romantic, as the world faded away to winter, showing that all life was transient, and beauty was fleeting and whatever else it is poets wrote about. (But even in the distant court, they knew fall brought winter and winter was cold and iron and hard).

But she had shone in the fall, radiant in her copper hair, echoing the deeper colors of the maples. (She was a winter warning, forest-haired and snow-faced). He had wanted to see her in the fall.

Instead, he trudged through the summer (he could not see her again in winter, when his mind grew hungry, longing for the hunt).

When his uncle died, Jon was not there. When the cousin he called brother died, Jon was not there. When Lady Stark died, and then Rickon, Jon was not there. When his little sister went missing and Bran disappeared, Jon was not there.

After their family had melted away like the summer snows, after Jon had been betrayed he found Sansa, the sister who was not his sister.

He had seen her in the moonlight on a winter’s night, and Jon did not recognize her. All he saw was the year staring back at him, winter skin, summer eyes, and autumn hair. It was not flame kissed or blood dyed, but auburn and ethereal. He had trouble remembering things from before, and women blurred together. Mothers and lovers and sisters and enemies and Jon knew she was one but not which because she was from that before. Her face was bare, out from behind the fans and screens ladies hid behind, but the shadows veiled her still and Jon wondered what this longing was. 

But then Jon knew she was Sansa, the lady sister of his childhood, not Ygritte or the priestess or Lady Stark.

She smiled slightly, the perfect level of politeness for a distant relative. _I did not know you had returned to court, cousin._

He frowned. _I have only just arrived_. _And I will be gone soon._ He had a duty to the realm.

Her face did not change, her immaculate smile still in place. _I hope you will enjoy your time at our court._

Jon did not lie to himself that her comment had not hurt him. _Ours, not yours,_ her perfect little smile mocked. _Bad karma,_ another lady with hair like that had said.

It was foolish, he knew, but he avoided talking to the Lady Sansa. Jon had done many things wrong, and that was one of them (all because she looked like too many other women he had known).

The court was nest of vipers. Everyone seemed to lie with each breath they took. They did not care about the war but wrapped themselves up in the transience of beauty and self-effacing melancholies. Jon knew he was out of place here. He found himself missing the deep forests and the deeper snow, and a castle made of stone and strength that he had left behind a long time ago.

When Sansa fell from grace, Jon was there.

She had been used and tossed aside, and she was still trapped, and Jon vowed that he would protect her as he could not protect Robb, and Arya, and Bran, and Rickon. He promised silently that he would protect the last Stark.

And when he saw Sansa again, she smiled her polite smile and Jon understood that she had no one she could lean on, no brothers in arms to stand beside her. She was a wolf alone and if there was anything Jon understood, it was being alone.

He understood being unable to trust.

Sansa played the koto for him. She welcomed him into her rooms (later there were rumors of a shadow wolf with bat wings lurking around her quarters in the dead of night). He had felt even more out of place, among her kimonos and books, glancing down at the stack of love letters that lay half forgotten in the corner. Jon hoped they stayed that way.

Truthfully, Jon had very little experience with ladies of the nobility. They were distant willowy creatures, who sat behind screens brushing their endless hair.

Sansa’s hair brushed the floor when she walked, and she sometimes sang to herself while she wrote. They never went to the flower viewings, or to the banquets. Jon kept to himself and Sansa trailed whispers behind her whenever she did her official duties. Jon often sat at the window of her room, flexing his burned hand while Sansa thought. It was easy being with her.

They talked about the rice harvest, the imperial debt, the best spring wakas. Sansa’s dreamy expressions masked her wit. She was not stupid, only quiet. She worried after the young girls newly arrived at court. Constantly, she was coming up with unobtrusive ways to guide the young girls that the court devoured.

_I was a foolish girl too, Jon. No one told me better. I had to learn on my own._

Jon was silent. He thought of Sam, who had needed kindness. Of all the boys and men who had been thrown away. Of the only father he had ever known, who had loved an outcast child and had died for his mercy.

Sansa knew the risks she took, sneaking in and patching cloths, arranging color combinations, and slipping perfumes. She was a prisoner here, unable to leave until granted imperial permission, but she was still kind.

Sometimes, Jon forgot the aching cold in his chest and remembered to laugh.

When Jon had to leave Sansa, he knew he loved her. There was a war to fight, and Jon was not a courtier but a soldier. It was the first time he had ever seen Sansa cry. She had begged him, and the temper Jon kept barely under the surface boiled up. He had a duty, and she knew it and she knew he had to go.

That was another thing Jon had done wrong.

The mountain road was long, longer than it had seemed in childhood.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from this poem by Ono no Komachi, a Heian poetess.  
>   
> Seeing the moonlight  
> spilling down  
> through these trees  
> my heart fills to the brim with autumn


End file.
